Dr. Blake Wiedenheft (USA)

Dr. Blake Wiedenheft is a professor in the department of microbiology and cell biology at Montana State University. He earned a PhD in microbiology at MSU for his work on the viruses that infect microbes that thrive in the boiling acid environments of Yellowstone National Park, prior to training in Jennifer Doudna’s lab at UC-Berkeley, where he helped establish the natural role of CRISPRs in antiviral defence and their applications for genome engineering. In the summer of 2012, Wiedenheft returned “home” to join the faculty at Montana State University (MSU). Today, Dr. Wiedenheft leads a diverse research team focused on understanding the mechanisms of antiviral defence, and the use of these systems for new applications in biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine.